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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Conservative Spokane council candidates attack liberal majority at church's candidate forum
Jul. 23—Voters got a better look Tuesday at some of the conservatives running for Spokane City Council at a forum hosted by Calvary Spokane, where they were asked about a wide range of topics, including the church's role in politics and whether buses are worthy public investments. The two candidates who attended — Chris Savage, running in northwest Spokane, and Jonathan Bingle, an incumbent running for re-election in northeast Spokane — railed against the council's liberal supermajority to an applauding crowd of roughly 100 packed into the spacious church. The conservatives criticized the majority's advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community, incentives to boost apartments and dense housing over single-family units, investments in bus lines and reforms to prioritize outreach over enforcement for homeless people camping in public. And though there are currently four members of the council majority coalition, and two more progressives running for a seat, Savage and Bingle focused almost exclusively on a single man: Councilman Zack Zappone, who Savage is running against. Bingle made no mention of his own opponent, abortion rights organizer Sarah Dixit. "Four years ago, we had a $4 billion surplus at the state level, and this year, they're asking for $17 billion in state taxes, something (Savage's) opponent supported ...and that's why Zack Zappone's got to go, right?" Bingle said. "... Zappone needs to be ousted from office," Savage said at another point. "He goes out there with his own personal agenda, trying to help out with the LGBTQ and all these small groups that really don't have a huge population here in Spokane, and wasting your tax dollars on stupid stuff like transgender bathrooms ..." The council has not approved any spending on "transgender bathrooms." Savage later clarified in a brief interview that he was referring to stray comments made during debate over an April ordinance Zappone sponsored that, among other things, guaranteed continued insurance coverage for gender affirming care for city employees; Bingle introduced a failed amendment to prevent transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice. In an interview, Zappone rejected what he called "DOGE-like cuts" to state or local services in order to balance the budget and called Savage's comments troubling and personally hurtful. Zappone was the first openly gay candidate ever elected to the Spokane City Council. "That is, sad and troubling ... that Christopher Savage is talking about people, particularly minorities in our community, not mattering," Zappone said. "I believe that we've seen people under attack. I've personally been a victim of these sorts of attacks — I've had people throw things at me while I'm walking down the street holding my partner's hand." Private cigar lounge co-owner and retired Air Force instructor Cody Arguelles — whose last name moderator Pastor Drew Johnson first struggled to pronounce and later had Bingle say for him at every mention — is also running against Savage and Zappone. Arguelles did not attend due to a scheduling conflict, but sent in a brief video introduction discussing his background and platform. Alejandro Barrientos, chief operations officer for the SCAFCO Steel Stud Company and candidate for south Spokane running against former prosecutor Kate Telis, was originally listed as an attendee but did not attend the event for "personal reasons," he said. Ballots have already been mailed out for the upcoming Aug. 5 primary election. While all three Spokane council districts have a seat up for election this year, only the northwest district, where Zappone is facing challenges from Savage and Arguelles, has more than two candidates and will appear on the primary ballot. Homelessness Bingle and Savage argued that the city council had significantly watered down homelessness laws by prioritizing service provider outreach instead of enforcement, pointing to the package of laws approved by the majority in July to replace a voter-approve anti-camping law struck down by the state Supreme Court on technical grounds in April. "There is no real enforcement mechanism in our city laws anymore," Bingle said, arguing that many of the chronically homeless were suffering from a "brokenness of the human spirit" that required forced treatment and potentially jail to extract them from a death spiral. "Personally, in my family, I saw as a brother of mine who struggled seriously with addiction, jail is what got him clean," Bingle said. "Jail is what helped him get his mind right." He conceded that high housing prices were contributing to homelessness, but argued the first step to make housing more affordable was for the state to stop raising taxes. Savage argued the City Council should reinstate the exact language of the voter-approved anti-camping law and that the city, particularly downtown, would benefit from increased law enforcement presence and "harsher laws" to remove the homeless. "We need people coming downtown, patronizing our businesses and making sure that they are enjoying the downtown, because that is their downtown," Savage said. "It's not the homeless' downtown, it's theirs." The city should also change which nonprofit service providers the city works with, moving away from housing and shelter services like those provided by Jewels Helping Hands and Catholic Charities and toward providers like Adult and Teen Challenge, a year-long faith-based residential addiction recovery program, which Savage claimed had better rates of success for their participants. Bingle, meanwhile, argued the city should get out of funding homeless services altogether. "Government should not be in the homeless business at all, that should be done by other entities ... what government exists to do is provide for the public safety and provide for the infrastructure," neither of which the city does well, Bingle said. Public transportation Bingle alone was asked about funding for the Spokane Transit Authority, a regional agency which the city is a member of. "People have seen as little as three or four riders on a bus at a time, and they want to continue to increase funding for it — what's going on?" Johnson asked. Bingle noted that his district has the highest ridership in the city and didn't want to say "transit is bad," but argued the agency and advocates for greatly expanded public transit were living in the past. "There's a lot of people who are interested in infrastructure from 1910 for some reason — we're still talking about building trains in 2025, or light rail to there like an adult, OK ?" Bingle said. He argued that buses were inefficient and the central City Line's $82 million cost was wasteful. "I think we could probably save a bunch of money if we just contract with Uber and say, here you go, for our tax dollars," Bingle argued. "You don't have to stand at a bus stop in the snow or in the rain or, god forbid, there's somebody sleeping in (the bus)." Fund the police Both Bingle and Savage argued the city needed more officers, but didn't need to turn to a voter-approved tax increase last year to do so. "I opposed this measure, and the reason isn't because we don't need more police, we absolutely that doesn't need to be done through a tax increase," Bingle said. Both candidates argued that campaigners had misled the public last year when they pitched the sales tax, meant to fund police, fire and related services, arguing it lacked the promised transparency that would make it easy to follow how the money is being spent. Instead, they claimed the city had simply transferred the money into the general fund, implying it had turned into a slush fund. It is true that campaigners claimed it would be easy to track how the money would be spent, though Bingle arguably mischaracterized the purpose of the general fund transfer. City officials had argued earlier this year that portions of the tax spent on staff needed to be transferred to the budgets of the relevant departments, which are contained within the general fund, because salaries would inevitably increase faster than a sales tax, leading to layoffs. City spokeswoman Erin Hut provided documentation to The Spokesman-Review showing the positions the city anticipated funding with the tax for the next five years, which align with how the tax was sold to the public. Hut noted the documentation is available to the public and would be reviewed in upcoming budget discussions. Bingle also claimed that Zappone had signed a pledge in 2020 to "defund the police," but had since distanced himself from that pledge as it became politically inconvenient. Zappone did sign a June 2020 pledge created by progressive organization Fuse Washington that called for, among other things, no longer providing military equipment to the police and to "redirect police department funding to community-based alternatives." Zappone, along with the rest of the city council, approved on Monday a $430,000 purchase of a replacement for a military surplus armored vehicle that was totaled last summer during a high speed chase. He has also repeatedly voted in favor of budget and salary increases for the Spokane Police Department during his first term. "I've been in office for 3.5 years and that's demonstrably false, and the people trying to spread those lies are trying to scare people," Zappone said. Savage argued the city could significantly increase police staffing by cutting other costs in the city, starting with the city council office itself. He specifically called for cutting the positions of Lisa Gardner, the council's communications director, and Christopher Wright, the council's policy adviser. "We can look into our own budget and pass on those savings to help out more people and more officers become part of SPD, are understaffed majorly," Savage said. "We need more officers in the city of Spokane right now, and we can do that by also helping put people like myself on City need people up there that are backing up our SPD." Churches in politics The first question of the evening in Calvary Spokane was not about city policy, but about whether churches like Calvary should be involved in politics. "We get a lot of pushback at the church anytime we do an event like this," Johnson said. "People say the church shouldn't be involved in politics, we should stay in our own lane. What do you think about that?" Savage argued that churches should feel welcome to engage in politics "when they allow a bunch of other religions (at City Hall) to be practiced and freely done." Savage noted that the City Council has intermittently cut off people's testimony at meetings when they have begun to read Bible passages at length. "But come down there with the Quran or some sort of Buddhist sutra, they'd probably allow it," Savage claimed. It's not immediately clear if anyone has ever attempted, at least in recent memory, to read any other religious text beside the Bible at a Spokane City Council meeting. Bingle, a former pastor himself, argued that Christians have not just the right, but the responsibility to "represent your God at the ballot box," arguing their collective voting bloc could significantly sway elections from the local to state level. "I think one of the things you're going to see is that — church isn't getting more political, OK, politics is getting more theological," Bingle argued. "When they start saying that a boy is a girl and a girl is a boy ... that's not a political statement, that's a theological statement. They're attacking the very creation of God."
Forbes
2 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Mehdi Hasan's Viral Jubilee Debate With Far-Right Conservatives, Explained
Topline Left-wing journalist Mehdi Hasan debated 20 far-right conservatives in a video that has gone viral on social media, largely due to shocking statements made by some of his opponents, including one who admitted he identifies as a fascist and doesn't care about being called a Nazi—and who has since lost his job, which Forbes confirmed through an employer. Mehdi Hasan's debate video for Jubilee has gone viral. (Photo byfor ... More Crooked Media) Getty Images for Crooked Media Key Facts The video, part of a controversial video series produced by media company Jubilee, has garnered 4 million views since its publication Tuesday and has racked up millions more views across X and TikTok. The nearly two-hour debate covered hot topics ripped from the headlines: Whether President Trump was defying the constitution, the value of immigrants to the U.S. and U.S. involvement in Gaza. Some inflammatory claims made by the participants have gone viral, including one from a man who identified himself as Connor, who responded, 'Yeah, I am,' after Hasan suggested he may be a fascist, to applause from the other participants, and also said he didn't care about being called a Nazi, voiced opposition to democracy and free speech, and advocated for autocracy by rulers who uphold Catholic teachings. One day after the Jubilee debate, Connor (who has not returned interview requests from Forbes) claimed in an interview on RiftTV he was fired from his job as a result of the debate, which he blamed on the 'manner in which you're canceled' for voicing 'heterosexual, Christian, moral beliefs.' VeUP, a cloud engineering firm, confirmed to Forbes the man had been a subcontractor, stating his employment was 'not terminated by VeUP, but by the core contractor.' Connor has since posted a fundraiser on a Christian fundraising platform seeking $15,000 in emergency funds while he seeks a new job, and as of Tuesday morning, he has raised more than $29,000, with some comments from donors including, 'It's ok to be white,' and 'We need a white nation! It's our only future! Vive le Fascisme!' What Moments From The Debate Have Gone Viral? One clip from the debate, in which a participant tells Hasan he's 'going to have to go'—meaning he wants Hasan, who is an immigrant, to leave the United States—garnered 10 million views in a post on X. In another clip that garnered 4 million views on X, a participant told Hasan he feels his 'entire race,' referring to white people, is facing a 'genocide' in the United States. In a moment from the debate that garnered 4 million views on TikTok, Hasan pressed a participant over her views on immigration, prompting her to admit her parents are immigrants to the United States, but 'at this moment' she does not 'accept that immigrants are Americans.' What Has Hasan Said After The Debate? Hasan has said in posts on X after the debate was uploaded to YouTube that he did not know some of the participants would be 'actual outright open fascists,' adding in another post, 'Jubilee cast these folks, not me!' At the end of the Jubilee video, Hasan said he enjoys debating people but tries to 'avoid bad faith folks,' adding he believes some of the participants in the video were debating in bad faith. 'Free speech doesn't mean you need to give credibility or oxygen or a platform to people who don't agree in human equality,' he said. Chief Critics Some viewers have criticized Jubilee, accusing the media company of platforming people who lack basic decency. In one post that garnered 44,000 likes on X, a user accused Jubilee of 'lying to its guests,' referencing a post by Hasan saying he was unaware of how far-right the guests would be. In another post that garnered 30,000 likes, a user said Jubilee should be 'demonetized' on YouTube, accusing it of 'knowingly spreading Nazi propaganda.' Last year, when a different Jubilee debate video went viral, a Vox journalist said the questions appear 'primed to become 'rage bait' clips meant to get viewers excited or angry, to the tune of millions of clicks.' Matt Bernstein, a left-wing activist and podcaster with millions of social media followers, said he previously turned down an invitation to appear on Jubilee and said he does not believe a "channel that gives a platform of millions to people who self identify as 'fascist' should be allowed to monetize its videos' on YouTube. Who Is Mehdi Hasan? A former MSNBC host, Hasan left the network last year and launched his media company Zeteo, which he previously told Forbes is an independent organization through which he will speak 'bluntly about racism, fascism, genocide and more.' Hasan hosts multiple podcasts for Zeteo as well as the 'Head to Head' podcast for Al Jazeera, and works as a columnist for The Guardian. He is the author of a 2023 book, 'Win Every Argument,' about how to succeed in debates. What Is Jubilee? Jubilee is a media company mostly known for its YouTube channel, where it has 10 million subscribers and primarily posts videos that attempt to challenge social taboos and norms. One of its most popular video series is the format Hasan participated in, in which one person of a certain political belief is made to debate more than a dozen people with opposing beliefs. Last year, a video of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk debating 25 college students described as liberal racked up 30 million views, making it one of Jubilee's most popular uploads. Other popular video series include 'Odd One Out,' in which a group of people are challenged to find which one does not share a common characteristic—like six vegans trying to find the one meat eater—and 'Middle Ground,' where people of opposing political views try to find beliefs in common. Further Reading '1 woke teen vs. 20 Trump supporters': The new age of viral political videos (Vox) 'Memeification of Politics': What to Know About Jubilee Media's Viral Debate Show Surrounded (Time)
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why two justices could hand Republicans their own ‘Ginsburg moment' next year
Are conservatives headed for their own 'Ginsburg moment'? That could be the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections if Democrats have any say in the matter. With next year's congressional elections still on the horizon, the first glimpses of the political dynamics that will shape 2026 are coming into view. Even as Donald Trump and his administration remain this week consumed by an uproar among the MAGA base over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, issues like inflation and the White House's mass deportation raids continue to retain salience quietly in the background — quietly, but not with diminished importance, as they'll likely remain the top factors driving Americans to the polls. Then, there's the Supreme Court. It remains a sore point for liberals who watched Republicans lock Barack Obama out of the discussion over a vacant seat in 2016 and then, in 2020, watched Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death just two months before a presidential election notch a second rightward shift for the court in less than a decade. Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, is the oldest member of the bench. Some conservatives have privately begun to fret that the right-leaning justice or his 75-year-old colleague, Samuel Alito (whose wife hung a symbol honoring the January 6 conspiracy after the attack) could cause another 'Ginsburg moment' by refusing to resign while Republicans control the Senate, allowing one or both seats to fall into liberal hands. The Justices of the Supreme Coury (AFP via Getty Images) Legal commentators are somewhat torn over whether either will retire this term. Mike Davis, a former Senate GOP staffer on Supreme Court nominations and current 'viceroy' of Trumpworld, wrote that Alito was 'gleefully packing up his chambers' after the 2024 election. Ed Whelan, the Antonin Scalia chair in constitutional studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, also predicted in 2025 that Alito would retire in 2025, and Thomas in 2026, according to the American Bar Association Journal (ABAJournal). Others are less certain, and a source close to Alito tried to tamp down on that speculation earlier this year. "Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective," they told the Wall Street Journal. "The idea that he's going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is," the source added. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivers remarks at the Georgetown Law Center on September 12, 2019, in Washington, DC (Getty Images) David Lat, who founded his own blog reporting on gossip surrounding the Court and broader legal world, also noted to ABAJournal that both justices have hired full rosters of clerks for the upcoming two terms, the latter of which will end in 2027. Under Donald Trump's first term, three Supreme Court vacancies were filled by conservative justices. Ginsberg's refusal to retire at multiple points when multiple factors were clear, including how her health challenges were affecting her work and the likelihood that Republicans would bend the rules (or shatter them) to see her seat filled with a conservative, is still looked by many as a failure of not just the justice but those liberals around her who allowed the octogenarian's desire to stay on the job conflict with political realities. Her defenders insisted that the justice's deliberations about retiring did not factor in politics at all. Critics of the Court see the justices' shroud of apoliticism as an excuse that does not match their rhetoric or actions, either on the bench or in public. The efforts by Alito's allies to dissuade speculation echoed those same defenses and rang especially hollow for the conservative justice who has shmoozed with a conservative billionaire with cases before the court and who reportedly authored his own blueprint for the eventual overturn of Roe vs Wade as far back as 1985. Thomas, meanwhile, reportedly sparked fears among conservatives that he would resign from the Court on his own way back in 2000 as he complained about the job's pay. But there's been no such murmuring as of late. If the claims are true and both justices are set on remaining on the bench, they could put Republicans in an awkward spot. The GOP's chances of protecting their newly-acquired Senate majority remain strong but have grown noticeably weaker in the past six months. The announced retirement of Thom Tillis in North Carolina puts his purple-seat state decidedly in play. Maine's Susan Collins is up for re-election, as is John Cornyn in Texas; Cornyn faces a hyper-MAGA primary challenger whom the senator has said could give up the seat to Democrats in November of 2026 if his primary challenge is successful. Rumors also continue to swirl about the possible retirement of Joni Ernst, the senator from Iowa, and her partner in the Senate delegation from the state, Chuck Grassley, is a staggering 91 years old himself. Several factors could force the Senate back into Democratic hands next year, and if the party's discussions over countering GOP redistricting in Texas by 'going nuclear' and following suit across a range of blue states is any indication, the party's members have learned not to give Republicans an inch and could block any of Trump's SCOTUS nominations going forward. In the end, the same shaky apoliticism that the justices cling to when facing any criticism from Congress or the Executive Branch could swing back to help the left, after causing so much damage at the end of the Obama era. It would be up to Democrats in the Senate to decide whether they are truly willing to take a page from the GOP's playbook.
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
5 ways your political point of view may be damaging your mental health
Recent studies confirm what many clinicians, myself included, have quietly observed for years: Liberals — especially young liberals — are reporting worse mental health than their conservative peers. Statistician Nate Silver's Substack recently spotlighted this disparity, and while many factors are at play, one explanation remains oddly absent from the national conversation: the psychological cost of cutting people off over politics. In my work as a clinical psychologist, I've watched this pattern unfold in real time. Some clients describe rising anxiety, loneliness and a growing sense of disconnection — but they don't initially trace it back to politics. Only after reflection do they realize: they've quietly (or, in some cases quite loudly and proudly) distanced themselves from family, ended friendships, or withdrawn from romantic prospects — not because of mistreatment, but because of political disagreement. As I was researching for my upcoming book Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly, I noticed a striking pattern — what I now call "The Five Ds": defriending, declining to date, disinviting, decreasing contact and outright dropping someone over political views. These behaviors are often framed as moral stands. But when practiced habitually, they can degrade the very relationships we rely on for emotional well-being. Research backs this up — liberals are statistically more likely than conservatives to engage in the Five Ds over political differences. The cost is real. The U.S. surgeon general has declared loneliness a public health crisis, linking it to depression, anxiety and even physical health problems. Social support is a powerful protective factor — it helps regulate emotions, buffer stress and reinforce a person's sense of meaning and connection. As social creatures, humans rely on relationships to regulate stress. When those bonds are cut over politics — especially through the habitual use of the Five Ds — liberals may be isolating themselves in ways that make them more vulnerable to loneliness, anxiety and diminished emotional regulation. Some do this in the name of safety, seeing opposing views as threatening. But this is a dangerous shift. Conflating disagreement with danger undermines mental health and shrinks our capacity for dialogue. Even The New York Times recently published an essay titled "Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family?" in which former Obama speechwriter David Litt wrestles with whether to stay in contact with his conservative brother-in-law. To his credit, Litt expresses openness to reconnecting. But his tone is hesitant, not declarative. The piece reads less like someone awakening to the dangers of ideological cutoffs and more like someone reluctantly conceding a grudge. That this question — whether to maintain ties with family — was posed at all in a national newspaper shows how far the goalposts have shifted. Ostracizing loved ones over votes once seemed extreme. Now it's mainstream content. This mindset of seeing opposing views as intolerable, or even threatening, isn't just common — it's increasingly celebrated, even when it harms us. The phrase "words are violence" may feel righteous, but taken literally, it breeds anxiety and isolation. When we view differing viewpoints as threats, we push people away — not because we must, but because we've convinced ourselves we should. The result? We're lonelier and more brittle than ever. None of this is to say that all relationships must be preserved. Boundaries are important. But ideological purging — done habitually and reflexively — is something different. It's corrosive. Ironically, conservatives — often caricatured as emotionally rigid — may be faring better precisely because they are less likely to sever ties over politics. Their emotional well-being may benefit from tolerating disagreement and maintaining bonds across divides. As a psychologist, I don't believe political ideology is destiny. But relational habits shape mental health. When we cut off those closest to us, even over serious disagreement, we deprive ourselves of a key buffer against emotional distress. What's worse, we often do so under the illusion that the cutoff is virtuous. The solution is not to avoid politics. It's to resist the reflex to cut and run. That begins with a simple mindset shift: disagreement isn't danger, and tension doesn't always mean toxicity. We can learn to talk through our differences — even when it's hard. Mental health and free speech are more connected than people realize. If we want to feel less anxious, less isolated and more connected, we need to rethink the social costs of ideological purity. The Five Ds may feel righteous in the moment — but the long-term cost to our mental health may be far too high.
Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Times
‘I was the Trump team': how the Podcast Election was won
The president's social media strategist has had a busy morning stirring up online outrage. In the past few hours Alex Bruesewitz has condemned Democrats as a 'pathetic group of people', denounced critics of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, as 'far-left maniacs' and shared a post of the 'horrible' liberal podcast host Alex Cooper being booed at a baseball game. Bruesewitz, 28, has been starting arguments like this professionally for a decade but now, sipping a glass of water at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, in a well-fitted navy blue suit, he is relaxed and even polite. He co-founded X Strategies, a company that counsels conservatives on how to win social media wars, when he was 19. Last year he was the architect of the podcast game plan credited with helping Donald Trump to win back the White House. Today he is at the heart of the administration's ultra-combative communications operation, working as a hired gun because he is planning to get married and thinks that it is 'a little bit difficult' to afford a wedding on a government salary. Often the best ideas are not his, he says. Take some of the viral memes — of Trump dressed as the Pope, or Gaza rendered as a holiday resort (Gaza-Lago), or the AI-generated cartoon of a crying migrant — that have driven huge clicks and controversy, amplified by the president's social platforms. Bruesewitz says they are generated by Trump 's fans, whom he calls 'really talented people'. 'These guys make some of the best memes, and they're bus drivers in small towns across the country,' he says. 'And they get off of work and they go home and they open their computer, they tell their wife they love them and they log on to X for the next five hours of their life. And they're making hilarious memes of the president or videos of the president.' But it was podcasts, not memes, that really sealed his reputation. During the 2024 campaign, which became known as the 'podcast election' because of the extent to which the format often seemed to usurp traditional media, Trump appeared on 20 episodes. Most were hosted by young men and popular with young men. These appearances reached 23.5 million Americans in an average week, compared with 6.4 million for his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Subsequently 56 per cent of men aged 18 to 29 backed Trump in 2024, up from 41 per cent in 2020. Trump's podcast circuit has been depicted as a long pitch to the 'right-wing manosphere'. Bruesewitz thinks this is unfair. 'None of the podcasters we sat down with during that period were Trump lovers,' he says. Instead, he calls them 'equal-opportunity critics' — hosts who have been critical of Trump on certain issues, and critical of Democrats on others. He also notes that Trump saw a bounce among young women, up from 33 per cent in 2020 to 40 per cent in 2024. Podcasts worked for the candidate because they suited his unique political skills, he says. 'The greatness about President Trump is that he knows all the issues, and he also has charisma that is unrivalled in the political space,' Bruesewitz says. In general, little to no preparation was needed. 'I think over-prepping your candidates is what kind of trips you up.' Underpreparing has its pitfalls too. Rapid rise In the last few days of the election The Atlantic described Bruesewitz as a 'terminally online troll and perpetual devil on the campaign's shoulder' who had urged JD Vance to amplify the lie that illegal Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating pets. The magazine also reported that it was Bruesewitz who had personally advocated for the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe to appear at a Trump rally days before the election, at which he then called Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage' (Bruesewitz says both claims are untrue.) But Trump's subsequent victory cast him in a much more favourable light and Axios hailed him as 'one of the most influential political strategists in the US'. In February the Trump family appointed him senior adviser to the political action committee Never Surrender, entrusting him with running two of the president's social media accounts. His team of five, based in Florida, manage the @TrumpWarRoom and @TeamTrump handles, which are followed by millions (although the president still posts his own messages on Truth Social). Bruesewitz has also found time to meet some British conservatives. He met Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, in London. 'I think she's a good person,' he says, adding that she's got the issues right but is in a tough position. 'The party that she leads now was led by imbeciles before.' On the Reform leader Nigel Farage, he says: 'He's probably the best in the UK and my advice to him has been to make sure you use your momentum and your platform to build up the voices of the next generation because he's not going to be hot for ever.' It all started with a tweet Bruesewitz's career started in April 2015 when he was 18 years old. He was sitting at his high school desk in the Wisconsin town of Ripon (population 7,900), 'and I posted a picture of the Trump Hotel in Chicago,' he says. 'And I said, 'the sign on Trump Chicago would look just as good on the White House'. And the president, then businessman Donald Trump, retweeted me.' Two months later, Trump announced his candidacy. 'And when he announced that he was running, I was sold already. I wanted to be like Donald Trump.' After high school, Bruesewitz skipped college and tried his hand at real estate, having admired the empire Trump had built. 'I didn't do so well in that,' he concedes. Trump's election in 2016 inspired Bruesewitz and his business partner Derek Utley to form X Strategies a year later. Their early clients included FreedomProject Academy, a Christian conservative homeschooling academy in central Wisconsin, and a father who lost his daughter in the Parkland school shooting in 2018. Utley and Bruesewitz represented the latter pro bono as he argued for more school security rather than fewer guns. Then came the 2020 election and Trump's claims of election fraud. Bruesewitz leapt to his defence on social media and made a speech in Washington's Freedom Plaza. When the BBC invited Bruesewitz on air, he argued with the presenter. 'Thank you for having me on,' he said, 'and I just want to make one thing very clear … your country's opinion stopped mattering in our country in 1776.' His sparring eventually got Donald Trump Jr's attention. 'He liked my tenacity online,' Bruesewitz says. 'He found me to be quite entertaining.' The two became friends and Don Jr introduced Bruesewitz to his father. 'I got to spend quality time with the president for the first time at a live golf tournament at his club in New Jersey,' he tells me. 'I ended up spending four and a half hours with the president that day.' They spoke about 'all things' — not just politics. 'And we've had a great relationship ever since.' After that, Bruesewitz poured his energy into attacking Republicans who had backed Trump's impeachment — not as an official Trump appointee but out of 'sheer patriotism and love of nation'. Eight out of ten of those Republicans either declined to stand in 2022 or lost their primary. 'We travelled [around] their campaign districts,' Bruesewitz says. 'I personally picked fights with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger,' he says of the two anti-Trump Republican members of Congress, 'which was also great entertainment. I found great joy in that'. In November 2022, the Trump family finally hired Bruesewitz. His mission? To help beat Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, to the Republican presidential nomination. That worked — and then came the general election. The podcast plan It was Trump's youngest son Barron, not Bruesewitz, who set up the first big podcast interview — with the 24-year-old online streamer and influencer Adin Ross — which proved the power of the format before the election. Bruesewitz calculated that clips from Trump's appearance were seen by 113 million people in the first 24 hours. When Bruesewitz presented the numbers to Trump, 'he flipped through it, and he was like, 'these numbers are massive''. Trump also thanked his 19-year-old son in a Truth Social post. 'And then about four or five days passed, and he kept texting me or calling me about how great that interview was.' Not long afterwards, Bruesewitz was called into the office of Susie Wiles, who helped manage Trump's election campaign and is now White House chief of staff. 'She's like, 'Alex, we've got to get him to do more of these.'' After that, they went all in. 'We lined them up, one major podcast a week, up until we did Rogan, which was like a week before the election,' Bruesewitz says. The appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the US, garnered more than 44 million views on YouTube by election day, allowing Trump to reach young, predominantly male voters, opining on topics such as martial arts, the possibility of life on Mars, and his admiration for William McKinley, the president who was assassinated in 1901. When I ask how Bruesewitz decided which podcasts Trump should do, he shrugs. 'I mean, I just went through something called Spotify and Spotify rankings. And I think we did eight of the ten podcasts on Spotify that were popular.' There was one conspicuous exception, however. Trump avoided Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy, one of the most popular podcasts among young American women. Cooper, the 30-year-old host of the show, is beloved by her 'Daddy Gang' — some 70 per cent of whom are female, with 76 per cent under 35. In October Kamala Harris appeared on the podcast, discussing women's rights and abortion. Cooper later said her team had a Zoom call with Trump's team about the possibility of him appearing. Bruesewitz says that's not true. 'I was President Trump's team,' Bruesewitz says. 'I never had a conversation with Alex Cooper about going on the podcast. Her team reached out to me. We never responded. I would never put the president on Call Her Daddy.' Why not? 'Because one, she's terrible, she's terrible at what she does. I think personally. I think she's been a detriment to society with the content that she talks about.' And she's 'regressive', he says, 'when it comes to starting families and having happy, healthy relationships'. A source close to the Call Her Daddy team confirmed that a call about the president coming on the show occurred before the election in November 2024 with members of his campaign team, including discussing a suggestion by his staff that they film the episode at Mar-a-Lago. Unexpected love story Instead, looking for a female-friendly podcast to counter Harris's appearance on Call Her Daddy, he landed on a show called Girls Gone Bible. 'It's the No 2 religious podcast on Spotify,' he says. 'Massive following. They do these in-person shows where they get 1,000 young girls at each tour stop. They talk about Jesus and they pray over them. And it's actually really beautiful.' Bruesewitz organised a meeting between Trump and the hosts of Girls Gone Bible in Las Vegas. The night before, one of the hosts brought a glamorous friend to dinner. It was Carolina Urrea, the former Miss Nevada. 'Carolina walked in. I'm like, wow, who's that girl?' The following day, Carolina took a picture with Trump, who gave Bruesewitz a 'thumbs up'. The pair got engaged eight months later. Bruesewitz says his fiancée has 'strengthened my relationship with the Lord'. ALEX BRUESEWITZ/INSTAGRAM He sees his experience as part of a larger shift toward Christianity in America in recent years. 'Another trend is moving away from the girl boss attitude to the trad wife,' he says. 'I don't know if it was Covid that kind of made that switch where people were spending more time at home and they were, you know, learning to cook more and doing more things. But that trad culture started taking off big time.' • My day with the trad wife queen and what it taught me While podcasts helped Trump to reclaim the White House, the president has rarely appeared on them in his second term. Though he showed up last month on the New York Post's Pod Force One, Trump is spending most of his time these days on Truth Social and his old favourite: TV news. Bruesewitz, who describes Trump as 'a good friend of mine' thinks this could change. 'I think he'll eventually do some. You know, he's been very busy running the free world.' As for his own future, he says that Trump would have endorsed him to run for office if he had wanted to, but he didn't. 'I think Congress would be a little too boring for me.'
